2014

The Maryland House of Delegates passed two Marcellus Shale regulatory bills on Saturday, adding clarity to how lawmakers expect the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to regulate oil and natural gas operators, as well as several aspects of their drilling activities.

Baker Hughes Inc. is planning to open a regional headquarters in Massillon, OH, in 2013 to take advantage of the business opportunities generated by the growing shale gas resources in the Utica and Marcellus formations.

A bill that would ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wastewater imports, storage, treatment, discharge or disposal generated in other states has been introduced in the Maryland General Assembly.

Chevron Corp. plans to continue to make acquisitions in unconventional plays around the world but the company likely will go it alone when it does, CEO John Watson said Friday.

Officials with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday fired off a letter to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about its intention to regulate hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Enterprise Products Partners LP said Tuesday an open season has shown that enough shippers are interested in taking capacity on its proposed Appalachia to Texas (Atex Express) ethane pipeline to support the 1,230-mile project. The pipeline would deliver ethane from the Marcellus/Utica Shale areas of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

An advisory panel formed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley will recommend that the state’s General Assembly impose a severance tax on natural gas production and a fee on gas leases, with the resulting revenue to be dedicated “to address impacts of gas exploration and production on the environment and natural resources” and to fund studies of issues related to the Marcellus Shale, according to a draft report by the state’s Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Commission.

The Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania is generally divided into two regions, the northeast and the southwest, but increasingly the stretch of fairway between those regions is gaining prominence.

South Korea’s state-run Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS), the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyer, is joining the Cordova Embayment natural gas project in British Columbia.